Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are dealing with legislation and the reality is we have to define what we are talking about, but I agree with one aspect of this. We had a long debate on this issue in the other House. I do not believe that modest items of jewellery should require to be sold unless a debtor wished to do so to repay debt. The sad reality over the years has been that individuals have pawned items of jewellery to pay debt. That has been part of the backdrop to this country and many other countries for many decades. I do not believe modest items of jewellery should require to be sold. I am also of the belief that creditors would be unlikely to seek the surrender of items of jewellery of modest value, whether they have ceremonial, family or other significance, in an enforcement action prior to any application for the granting of a debt relief notice. The experience in other jurisdictions is that people are not asked to have modest personal items valued, and I do not believe that was intended or envisaged.

There is an argument for suggesting we might be better off being silent on that issue, but, on the other hand, if someone has something of substantial value, say, ¤200,000 or ¤300,000, and they want to have their debts written off, it is not reasonable, fair or appropriate that we say that is of ceremonial significance and they can keep that. There are some individuals who during the course of the first part of the 2000s spent extraordinary sums of money on items of jewellery. Some of them felt the need on occasions to advertise that in the social columns of the Sunday Independent by ensuring press releases were issued about that to boast how much they had spent on whoever happened to be their latest partner. Individuals of that nature have found themselves in a position of not paying creditors, and let us remember what we are talking about. If, for example, as a husband I personally became bankrupt or insolvent, jewellery I have given to my wife does not fall into my insolvency. If my wife became insolvent, it may fall into her insolvency. This is not fully understood but if, say, an individual who has substantial debt has jewellery worth ¤300,000, ¤400,000 or ¤500,000, and it may be antiques they have collected or some very large item of jewellery they were given, it is unreasonable to say they can keep that and their creditors need not be paid out of that. Where someone does have something that is modest, however, and has family significance - I would emphasise family or personal significance as opposed to ceremonial significance as stated in the amendment - most creditors would not even explore that issue and it should not fall into this.

In the context of the various urgings being made upon me, we have been considering the complexities of this issue and how we would draft it to ensure it applied to something modest and would not act as a catalyst to include modest items currently ignored being brought in to require people to use them to discharge debt. I am willing to consider the possibility of excluding a single item of jewellery of what I would describe as family significance but not necessarily ceremonial significance. It may be a modest piece of jewellery such as a ring, the engagement ring the Senator mentioned or something someone has inherited from a deceased relation. It would be something of family significance to the individual concerned or of general significance to other members of the family.

I said in the other House that we would reflect on the value. I do not want to give the wrong information but I asked one of the Senator's Fianna Fáil colleagues in the other House the values they had in mind and a figure of ¤400 to ¤500 emerged from that exchange. We are considering a value in the region of ¤500 for a single item of jewellery of family significance to fall into this but I could not accept the Senator's amendment because, first, there is no financial limit on the item to which he is referring. Second - I will not make my previous reference because I will start laughing again and get into trouble - there is no indication of what is meant by "ceremonial". People wear jewellery on strange anatomical parts nowadays and some of those I will not investigate in this House.